Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin

  “What does that mean?”

  “Like a woman.”

  “How could a religion be like a woman?”

  “It made men be like women.”

  “They couldn’t ever. Oh, well—I did think that perhaps Hermann—oh, yes, I see. It’s because the women were more like men. But too soon? Do you mean Christianity will come again?”

  “I don’t say that. But rejection of war must come again. I mean a conscious rejection, not this dreary involuntary starvation. Now von Hess would have said when he started writing that any man who denied the glory and goodness and beneficence of war was effeminate—that is, like a woman.”

  “Well,” said Alfred, “if I had him here, and saving your presence, highly-born, I’d knock his head off.”

  The Knight smiled, and then sighed.

  “I shall miss you, Alfred. I shall miss von Hess, and I have to assist at the formal disgrace of one of my own Nazis. It’s a wretched end to an old man’s life. Well, here you are. Our time is up.”

  The Knight had drawn from the desk a very imposing-looking parcel covered with seals, and most carefully addressed in his meticulous German writing:

  From Friedrich von Hess, the Knight of Hohenlinden in Bayern, to the highly-born Wilhelm von Hodenlohe, the Knight of Gloucester in England, by the hand of the bearer, Alfred, E. W. 10762, Englishman on pilgrimage in Germany.

  Alfred stared at it and said nothing.

  “The photograph is inside the book,” the Knight explained. “I have not put the plate in. I shall break it. That print is good for a hundred years if you keep it out of strong light, and before that time someone will be able to make a new plate from it. Take care of it. It is not as important as the book, but it has significance.”

  “But, sir, you said you were going to pack the book up. Do you mean I’ve got to go now, altogether?”

  “Yes. But I did not want to spoil our last conversation with thoughts of parting.”

  “But why can’t I come again? I don’t half understand things yet. You say you can do what you like.”

  “Up to a point. But when the others know, as they will to-night, that Hermann has gone to jail, then I cannot see you any more. They will know afterwards why Hermann went to jail, and that I, as Knight, am from this evening in a sort of shameful mourning because one of my men, a Nazi personally known to me, is disgraced. I could not be expected then to pay any attention to an Englishman, however mad I was, and if I did go on doing so there would be definite suspicion of something odd about the whole affair. You see?”

  “Oh, I do. But it’s very upsetting. I shan’t be able to understand the book.”

  “Von Hess says a half-witted man can understand it. If there are, as there must be, words that are lost now, you will guess their meaning from the context. Hermann will perhaps be able to help you at first with bits of German you can’t understand. But, indeed, though your accent is deplorably British, your command of German seems to be quite good.”

  “Nothing like as good as yours of English. Oh, the things I meant to ask! I never thought of this because I know it’s all put up about Hermann. And can I walk right out now with this parcel under my arm? And of course I can’t come with Hermann to-night because he’s going to make his foul confession to you.”

  “No. But you can walk out now with the parcel and show it to the whole village if you like, though I shouldn’t do that, and then I think you had better get your sack and walk on somewhere else. To Munich, I think. You must finish your pilgrimage properly. You see, I have done all this with a light heart because all I know so far is that Hermann has accidentally killed a boy whom he swore was interfering with a Christian girl. But after to-night I am not light-hearted any more, and it might be as well if you were started on your journey, and had separated yourself from our affairs.”

  “I’m not very light-hearted now,” said Alfred. “Can I say good-bye to Hermann?”

  “The more affecting and public your parting is the better. If Hermann could weep it would be an excellent thing. He is already working himself up to come to me to-night with his horrible tale.”

  Alfred was standing up, his precious package under his arm. He was staring at the Knight intently, as if he were trying to make a clear photographic image in his brain. He sighed, and presently looked down at the desk.

  “When I was a young man,” he said, “I used to get little Fred out from the Boys’ Nursery in my free time, and take him a walk down the Avon or somewhere, and we used to play a game: ‘I love my love with an A, because he is Alfred. I hate him with an A because he is an ass, or annoying, or angry,’ or something bad, you see, and then young Fred used to do it to me. All through the alphabet, and sometimes in German, to teach him a few words.”

  Alfred looked up at the Knight again.

  “I love my love with a G,” he said slowly, “because he is good. I hate him with a G, because he is German. If I could only remember your face and hair and the shape of your beard, and your eyes, and forget that blue tunic and the cloak, and those silver swastikas on the collar! You have done us a very great harm, because now we can’t really love all through, as we should like to, even the best German, not even the best man, if he should be a German, in the world.”

  “Well,” said the Knight, with a little cough, “I agree that it is lamentable. But you think too much of me, Alfred. I am not the best man, I am merely a man with special advantages. A lucky man, and that is not admirable. I pass my luck to you and I hope it won’t kill you. So good-bye.”

  He held out his hand, and Alfred shook it, wondering with half his mind how many centuries had passed since an Englishman had thus been treated as the equal of a Teutonic Knight.

  The Knight sat down again, and said, “Attention. I must summon Heinrich.”

  Alfred stiffened and stood staring into vacancy above the Knight’s head till Heinrich came in.

  “My lord,” he said, saluting.

  “Take this man out, and inform the Knight’s Marshal that I am ready to see him now.”

  “My lord,” said Heinrich.

  Alfred and he saluted, but Alfred walked out in a very slummocky English way, with his head turned over his shoulder. The Knight did not look up. He had his long slender old hands before him on the desk, and was gazing down at his ring.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALFRED arrived in Southampton in the early afternoon of the last day of his pilgrimage. His pass gave him till eight o’clock on the next morning, when he must report to his Nazi foreman at the aerodrome. He dawdled about in Southampton till the evening, with plenty to say to the English dock-workers about his travels in the Holy Land, then he walked out on the Salisbury road and presently hailed a passing lorry.

  “Where to?” he asked the driver, a German.

  “Bulfort. Any good to you, Englander?”

  “Nein. Danke schön.”

  Alfred walked on, the weight of von Hess’s enormous tome pressing into his shoulders through the straps of his sack. Soon another army lorry came bumping along behind him. Alfred thought: “If this one is going up to Bulfort, I’d better take it even if it is a German. Or I’ll get on it and go as far as Salisbury with him anyway.” He stopped it.

  “Where are you going to?” he asked in German.

  “Bulfort, you son of a million pig-dogs,” said the driver in good Wiltshire English. “Jump up, Alfred, and don’t talk German to me, please.”

  “Oh, what luck, Johnny! I couldn’t see you properly. Oh, that’s grand! Now I can go to sleep. Wake me up at Amesbury, will you?”

  “Won’t you tell us about your pilgrimage?” the driver’s mate asked.

  “Any time you like but now,” said Alfred, yawning. “I was sick all the way from Hamburg. I’m short of sleep.”

  He wedged himself comfortably between the driver and the youth, his mate, with his precious sack down on the floor where he could feel it with his feet. He leaned towards the youth in order not to interfere with Johnny’s driving, and
was almost instantly fast asleep. The lorry noisily sped on through the darkening landscape. Johnny presently switched on his headlights. When they got to Amesbury it was quite dark. Johnny woke Alfred up with a dig in the ribs.

  “Amesbury, Alfred. D’you want to get down here?”

  “Please. I’ve got an appointment with some ghosts up at Stonehenge.”

  Johnny laughed, and threw Alfred’s bulky sack down to him.

  “Hitler! What’ve you got in that sack, Alfred?”

  “Stones from the Holy Mountain. Good night, Johnny. Good night, Charles. See you soon.”

  The lorry drove on, and Alfred turned his face to the west. Charles said, “He can’t really be going up to Stonehenge this time of night.”

  “Not he,” said Johnny. “Though I know he likes the old place. He’s probably going to see a man in Amesbury and walk up. And I bet it isn’t stones from the Holy Mountain in that sack, either. Alfred’s a damned old hypocrite. I’m twice as religious as he is, and I don’t get pilgrimages chucked at me.”

  Charles laughed. “The pious ones don’t need pilgrimages,” he said. “They think Alfred’s faith wants strengthening.”

  “It does, and how,” said Johnny.

  At four o’clock in the morning Alfred reached his own house in Bulfort where he lived with Fred and James, his two eldest sons, and Thomas, his younger brother. His sack was considerably lighter. He went quietly into the room he shared with his boys, pulled off his boots and coat and lay down. Fred heard the little narrow bed creak.

  “Father, is that you?”

  “Yes, my lad. Don’t wake Jim up.”

  “I was afraid you were going to be late on report,” Fred whispered. “We’ve been expecting you any time all day. Young Jim’s been as nervy as a cat about you. Just let me wake him up and tell him. He’s probably having bad dreams.”

  “Bosh,” said Alfred. But he got up and went over to the younger boy’s bed. “Guess who’s here, Jim,” he said, shaking the boy’s shoulder.

  Jim woke up, and greeted his father so demonstratively in the dark that he managed to give him a hard box on the ear.

  “Damn you,” said Alfred. “There, go to sleep again.” He kissed Jim and went back to his own bed.

  “Why are you so late, father?” Fred asked.

  “Tell you some time. Not now. Go to sleep, Fred. We’ve got to get up in less than three hours.”

  Next day Alfred did his work with only half his mind. He did it automatically well, but he could not keep his whole attention really on it. He had meant just to leave von Hess’s book in the inner chamber of the dug-out and go straight home, but when he got to his secret place, and found everything undisturbed, the dead soldiers still on guard in their accustomed positions, the pile of flints and crumbled chalk he and Tom had scraped out of the back tunnel the same as it had been, he had succumbed to the temptation to sit down on the old pile of sacks he and Tom had brought there years ago to rest on and read a little in the book by the light of his torch. He had read until the torch began to dim, and he came to himself with a terrible headache. He decided to bring candles up for general use. There was a draught through the dug-out when both ends of the runs were open, but he could sit and read in the inner room where they would not gutter, and keep the hinged wooden shield open to have some air. He put the book away, crawled down the tunnel and stopped up the end of it with the old piece of stone. He stumbled back across the downs to Bulfort with his knees failing and his head full of confusion and glory, and the wonder of the vistas, like jewelled fairy caverns, faintly revealed by the little light von Hess had been able to leave still burning. And to-day how could a man think whole-heartedly of mechanism, even though it was his proper and satisfactory job, when by walking a mile or two and crawling down a hole, he could get in touch with lost civilisations and the thought-mechanism of complex human beings?

  At dinner-time in the English mechanics’ mess his absorption did break up. The meal was finished and the men were idling about ostensibly listening to the news on the loudspeaker until the whistle should blow that would send them back to work. A man called Alfred aside from the group he was addressing on the subject of his pilgrimage, which everyone found more interesting than the news.

  “Alfred,” said the man, “your woman, Ethel, has had her baby, and it’s only a girl. It’s about three weeks old now.”

  “Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Well, can’t be lucky every time, I suppose. Thanks, Henry. Have you taken your son away yet?”

  “No. Margaret’ll have him for another six weeks.”

  Alfred said no more, but he grew thoughtful and unresponsive to the other men.

  When his work was finished and he had taken his evening meal at home with Thomas and Fred and Jim, he put on his coat again. He had been sitting comfortably in his shirt sleeves.

  “You’re not going out, father?” young Jim pleaded. “You haven’t told us anything hardly yet.”

  Fred said nothing. He was a patient lad, a tall lanky fair creature, not at all like his father, with deep-set intelligent blue eyes.

  “I am going out,” Alfred said. “I’m going to be here the rest of my life, Jim. You’ll hear my tales so often you’ll be sick of them.”

  “If you’re going to be here the rest of your life you. can stay with us this evening,” said Thomas reasonably. “Where are you going?”

  “To the Women’s Quarters.”

  “Oh, well,” Thomas sounded resigned. “Did anyone tell you that baby of yours is only a girl?”

  “It was born three weeks ago,” snapped Alfred. “I suppose I can go and see Ethel if I like?”

  “Certainly, certainly,” said Thomas, peaceably. “No one is trying to stop you.”

  Alfred grunted and went out. The Women’s Quarters was a large cage about a mile square at the north end of the town. The women were not allowed to come out of it without special permission, which was very rarely granted. They had their hospital inside it, and their house of correction, where they were sent if they injured each other or failed in perfect humility. Their rations were brought to them every day, and once a day all women and girls who were not in late pregnancy or ill were made to do some gentle feminine physical exercises under bored male instructors. Otherwise they could do what they liked, but they had nothing to do except nurse their small children, cook their little rations, and quarrel. Their clothes were made for them and doled out like the rations. Once a month they were driven out of their enclosure and up to the church, and that was the only time they were allowed to walk in the streets of the town like the men. They did not relish this privilege at all, because the Worship made them cry. They got on better living their stupid lives in little groups of two or three women with their daughters and very tiny sons, who lived each group in the small wooden separate houses. They hardly knew that there were women who could move about freely, the Christian women; because they never saw a Christian. They knew vaguely that there were some horrible things called Christians, and that they were not required to be submissive to the male monsters among them, but temptation was kept out of their way. No Christian would come within half a mile of the sentry at the gate of the Women’s Quarter in any town or village. Other men were allowed to go in at any time, so long as they were over the age of sixteen. To prevent incest, which was considered weakening to the race, a certain house (or houses) was pointed out to the son by the father as barred. The women in those houses were not for him. The sense of taboo was so strong on the sons that they usually avoided that part of the cage altogether. None of the women found their lives at all extraordinary, they were no more conscious of boredom or imprisonment or humiliation than cows in a field. They were too stupid to be really conscious of anything distressing except physical pain, loss of children, shame of bearing girls, and the queer mass grief which always overtook them in church.

  Alfred made his way through the girls’ playground where a crowd of small children, too young for the dullness which overtook
all women at puberty, were playing like puppies; not a recognisable game—there was no one to teach them any games—but just chasing and fighting and tumbling. If they got in his way, Alfred moved them out with his foot or hand, not ungently.

  He came to the house where his woman, Ethel, lived with her sister Margaret, who belonged at the time to the man called Henry. He walked straight into the living-room. Henry was not there, neither was Margaret, unless she was in one of the bedrooms. Ethel was there, looking dully unhappy and not well. The new baby was nowhere to be seen. When Ethel saw Alfred she got up weakly, bowed before him, and began to move towards the door of one of the inner rooms. She would not speak unless he did.

  “Stay here, Ethel,” Alfred said. “I don’t want that.”

  Ethel began to cry.

  “Master, I am ashamed,” she said. She was about as unhappy as a woman could be. She had offended Alfred by bearing him a girl, now he would take the white armlet off her jacket which showed she was one man’s present property, and some other man would take her. Alfred was never unkind; he never beat her or kicked her or even cuffed her. She might do so much worse. She might even have to go to the big house where the Nazis went, and though that would mean a long rest from child-bearing, for the German men were taught how to prevent racial calamities of this kind, the prospect never rejoiced any woman’s heart. They had no national feeling, all men were equally lords, but they could not understand the Nazis, and the Germans were also inclined to be physically more brutal than some, at any rate, of their own men. Ethel would cheerfully have borne Alfred a child every year till she died, in order to be kept by him away from the Nazi house. But Ethel felt all this in a vague dull way, as she felt her weakness and a dragging pain in her back. She was wretched and she was ill, but she knew it hardly more than an animal would have done.